No, druids cannot tank a mob even if it is a blue or light blue con. Druids' melee skills have a very low skill cap and because of this they miss roughly 75% of the time. They can however take a reasonable amount of damage, although if you are getting hit by something that quad hits or hits pretty hard you will not last long. Hope this answers your question.

Firstly I'd like to start by saying that your caps key makes my unborn children weep. And your name offends me to no end.

Secondly. To answer your question bluntly, I would say no on average. What they are able to do is survive more than three hits from a mob (usually) and live long enough for the tank to get the mob off them, the cleric to heal, and/or get a root/snare off to get out of melee range and either gate or heal themselves.

The fact that they can't melee very well doesn't stop a druid from being a great character. We are fairly capable healers, though a cleric should always heal first, and decent nukers, as you stated. But most likely if you attempt to be a melee, you're going to be finding you need a lot of cleric friends with decent rez percentages.

Your probably thinking along the lines of Battle Cleric, Why not battle druid right? Well, for one, even though the armor out there gets better and better... A cleric can wear plate armors. They have more options for AC, and all be it they dont have damage shields or regen, they can buff up AC and HP like no ones buisness. I am not sure what the cap is at, but I have heard a cleric can use 1hb rather well, even later into the game.

Even with a melee buff on, we just dont hit that well, and we take damage poorly. If you want an example. A ranger is a Hybrid melee class / druid...

Think of it this way, I have a 35 ranger, they take a lot of damage poorly...We have all seen it from time to time. That is why they get Parry, block, Reposit, dissarm, duel weild, double attack.... With all that going for them they can barely stand toe to toe and generally have better AC... Dont get me wrong I love my ranger. But you have to have a root and heals and a bow... ETC.

now, take ALL that away, and go out there and have fun bludgening a mob... It just isnt there. Unfortunately, I wish a couple times myself, but I have seen what a single mob does to my HP especially upwards of 45th lvl I would definately say no.

From Lv1 to Lv65 the Druids tanking abilities drop rapidly. At level 1 sure you can tank one of those bats or bees in GFay. At Lv15 you have a little struggle tanking an Orc Legionaire in CB, needing some healing. At Lv35 you try to tank a mob you get smacked down after some hits. At Lv50 you try to tank a Sentry of Justice and he beats your *** a little and you are lying on the ground. At Lv60 you take aggro from a crystaline golem in Plane of Valor and you better pray that you live after 2 of it's swings...

Emperor Crush is actually only around level 20. However, the point remains the same.
Unfortunately, Druids are not meant to be a melee class. Where we are lacking there, we make up for in many other areas.
There is always gear out there that will help you be better, or prolong your life as a druid, but for the most part, the answer would be no.

With the right twink gear any class can tank into the 20\'s (I know, my mage did it)... but an untwinked druid or a druid in their 30\'s or above won\'t make much of a tank, no matter how well geared! The mobs just hit too hard.

By the way.. on the tanking thing.. I was in Crushbone last night. One of my senior guild friends, a level 40 druid, was supposed to be covering my 12 chanter while he leveled. Some brilliant lvl 20 bard was training the zone. I lost her in the mess. Turned out, she got wiped by the train because she had buffs up instead of nukes. The lady has some of the best gear in the game, she is a bazaar junkie..

Meanwhile, my well-buffed chanter and self-buffed pet took out 1 red warlord, a yellow shaman(?), 3 DB legionaires and ran from Lord Dolrish and a legionaire who decided I looked tasty without my mana. (Thanks to the 50 chanter (breeze, superiority, etc), 40 plus cleric (temp), and my druid friend (DS, regen) who powered me up for this run at the back of the train.... :P)

Anyway, she was surprised she dropped to a whole bunch of greenies. I guess she thought the Damage Sheilds would take them out. All I can say is.. you can only hit one at a time with a sword. Without crowd control or AE nukes, you can get killed by multiple attackers very quickly. 30pts a hit by 6 MOBS is still 180 pt hits.

Final statement.. My 51 druid keeps a sword or 1HB up in case of emergency.. He just makes sure it adds wisdom in case of OOM. It has save the collective group more than once on bad pulls. And keeps me from burning the last of my mana when kiting in wolfie.

Druids = not a tank,they can't take the hits,and can't deal enough damage in melee as well.
Try a Ranger if you want to do some melee damage =)

Shogunman is getting near the money...

Druids tank as good as Warriors Nuke.

It's all in the MoJo , no a Druid is not a tank . No doubt about it . But they do have the ability to use a 1Hb, 2Hb, 1Hs and not too sure about the 2Hs . So Why not Use all your " tools " to the best advantage ? Thats what a Druid is about after all , Adaptable .I am sure your amazed with the multitude who don't play a druid but are experts at it and therefore want to tell you how to play yours
Personaly on my lvl 65 druid I have from the start used my 1Hb any time I could . I have maintained a maxed out 1Hb since the early 20's. I used a soul stripper as soon as possable. It siphons 75 HP to your self from the NCP when it proc's and it proc's often . I all so used a 36% haste belt I got off some shopkeeper : ) . You don't have to wear it all the time but an experianced player can switch it out in seconds where it will count or you can use a COF or a Ldon Aug. once I was High enough I got my self a Delightful orb of forgotten magic it has a nice Proc of 320 and does proc often. Go ahead and get dex buff or now you can buy potions 50% haste @ lvl 60+( ty ty SOE ) It's a Very nice feeling to finnish off some persistant Bard with your 1Hb as you go oom ,or some NCP about to Kill you and your oom.
Even funnier still is a 10K warrior attacks you and Can't even Hit you because all your defensive skills are maxed out so you get your spells off and run him / her out of zone of kill them.
No you don't want to grab your bear and run off in the woods to tank trents o_O . But you do wan to get up and hit on the Ncp when you got a good group and not having to play nurse maid. Another good one I did often is fear kite and Hit on the NCP after dotting it, Lots of zones for that .
Druids are in my opinion the only class to play. I really enjoy the deversity of the class. point is it's fun every day to face the many challanges both Pvp and Pve your bound to face. Play your Druid the way you feel .I just like to stay busy

Showgar 65th Storm Warden
Zek Server
100 AA's Spent you guess where o_O

I agree with the last two posts. Druids will not tank in groups, and often you won't tank when you're hunting mobs that are high dark blue cons to you, especially after level 30 or so. It's just not smart to try to do so.

At the same time, there's a lot to be said for maintaining your melee skills as high as possible. They will cap out early, and after that mobs will beat you down very, very quickly. It's important to learn early how to take down creatures without letting them touch you so you know how to solo in the end game.

Personally, I take a lot of melee damage while soloing. Generally I have to med up mana after two or more kills unless on a mount, so I might as well let my hp drop a little while fighting since I'll be medding regardless. Besides, why not make the best use of one of your best tools. Druids get damage shields that stack together, and if a mob is beating on you relatively quickly, then they'll be taking all the damage of your ds. It's like an extra dot. You get excellent regen spells, too, which will compensate for the damage you take a bit.

This being said, it makes it that much more important to snare what your fighting and have sow up constantly because you never know when you'll get an add or that frost giant might quad attack on you a little more than your low hp/ac can handle.
My strategy when soloing mobs that are relatively easy to handle is simple. I'm lvl 50 now and have progressed rather rapidly by soloing (often meleeing during that time). I am a college student and don't have much time to play (my played time on the character right now is about 7 days, and that includes bazaar afk time), so this is my advice.

-you should try to save up enough pp to have a mount to aid in mana regen while casting, or make sure to use one of the mounts from the latest expansions on your druid. You can take melee damage and regen mana like you are sitting on a mount as long as you aren't attacking. This is important because your ds will do much more damage than you will attacking with any weapon I've seen that's druid usable and your low lvl cap on melee abilities.

-over lvl 46 try to keep kei or something close to it up when you hunt because it gives you so much more mana to play with. More mana means you can do so much more, and at the higher levels soloing is slow and almost silly without it. Kei is more important for a meleeing druid than any hp buff you will get.

-now that you have decent mana regen (without even having high end equipment, but if you do it's even better), what I typically do is snare the mob, lay on one or two dots, depending on how tough it will be. I make sure both my damage shields are up as well as your ac/hp buff that regens and chloro. Then just sit back and cast DD's as necessary. Don't even hit the attack button, just let them wail into the thorns. You'll regen mana quickly enough while you don't attack to heal yourself during the fight and continue laying on whatever other spells are necessary. If you must, root the mob and back off enough to rest a while.

Well, I just felt like I needed to put a bit of my strategy out there for what I do when quad kiting gets boring or seems impossible, or you just feel like mixing it up a bit with meleeing. Hope this strategy will help those in the future.

Selvo, Druid, Erollisi Marr

PS- This is what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R weren't in it.

Young druids can tank (the levels where every class has to tank)with the aid of your damage shield. It won't take long to get to the point where the mobs are hitting you for far too much damage to stand there and take it. At 57 with roughly 3k HPS most DB and many LB MoBs will destroy me in about 1 minute.

When it comes to tanking there are a few things to consider,
1) HP to soak up the damage
2) Mitigation to reduce the damage taken
3) Avoidance to keep from being hit

Druids lose on points 1 and 2 but Avoidance is your best chance at surviving melee combat post lvl 20. Max that agility, keep the melee skills up, if you melee from day 1 you will be better at it later in life (better, not good).

While in your face fighting is not the way a druid was intended, I have seen many many toons do things that they were not 'envisioned' to do. Druids are the best all around class IMO with only bards having a similar amount of abilities.

Recently I duo'd Faydewer in TD at lvl 57, my spells would not stick at all. In frustration I decided to wander in and smack it. A shammy pet was tanking so I got instant agro, I hit it for 1, in a blur of red text I am backing away down about 1.5k HP. 1500HP in mere seconds, that is the challenge you will find trying to melee with a druid.

kk since the question was "can a druid tank" and not "should a druid tank", this is my reply, with defensive aa's and decent gear i have seen druids, along with every other class, tanking mobs in WOS, these mobs hit for near 800 and fast. my understanding of tanking means the guy holding the agro and taking the hits, i never thought of it as a melee skill, granted you need the defensive melee skills, but who gives a rats *** if the tank does a single point of melee damage while hes tanking as long as hes holding agro and doing damage to the mob some way?, point is, yes, with a slower and healer in the group, the druids nukes/dots/snares/debuffs for agro and a decent amount of defensive aa's to back you, yes you and every other class can tank in high level zones, next question: why would you want to?, i guess if theres no warrior, sk, pally or even ranger or bst around, but id suggest kiting or finding another group